Thoughts about following Jesus

I am currently teaching a class entitled American Idols. We have been discussing different idols that Americans are particularly vulnerable to worshipping. Many times those idols go unnoticed to us because they are so woven into the fabric of our culture. We accept them without giving them a second thought.

In the class right now we are discussing the idols of greed, materialism, and money. This is a particularly difficult idol for Americans to notice, because we are accustomed to having so much. Many Americans believe that they are entitled to the abundance we have in America.

Jonathan Storment sums up this idol of greed very nicely on his blog:

“Some men worship rank, some worship heroes, some worship power, some worship God, and over these ideals they dispute and cannot unite-but they all worship money.”-Mark Twain

In his book, Gods at War, Kyle Idelman talks about how one of his friends was on the fast track in his career. It seemed like making money came easy to him, and he loved what he did. But he was constantly working for more. One day he was having lunch with a man who was quite a bit more successful then him and he asked him what he was working on.

The man told him that what he really wanted was the new Executive line Rolex watch. And the man asked him how much it would cost him. He said, “More time away from my wife and kids. Less weekends at home with them. Maybe skip a vacation, but you’ve got to make sacrifices to live the way you want to.”

We make fun of the ancient world for sacrificing children, but we sacrifice them all the time for the insipid god of more.